reluctant to ask...

[Desdichado]

I used to do this for Vampire games, but D&D? What would you listen to? I could imagine a lot of Rush, Zepplin, and Queen going on.

It's a bit of a tangent, but I have a real pet peeve about playing rock music during D&D games. I hate the very concept of it. And for that matter, I hate Rush and Zepplin anyway, even in non-gaming environments.

I think the most appropriate music to play during D&D campaigns are orchestral movie soundtracks, personally. For straight-up D&D, I throw in the three Lord of the Rings soundtracks, and Braveheart and Gladiator and stuff like that. For a different feel, I'll toss in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or The Last Samurai or Troy which lends a touch of exoticism. For a darker game with hints of horror, I'll toss in Signs, Sleepy Hollow, Bram Stoker's Dracula and others.

 

[Quickbeam]

Like JD, we play movie and video game soundtracks during the sessions I run. My personal favorites are LotR (any) and Pirates of the Caribbean.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I'd like to give soundtracks a shot for my next campaigb (mostly Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story, perhaps with some Suikoden and 13th Warrior mixed in), but I'm mostly forced to game in-store because of available space.

 

[Xath]

In the WoT game I play in, music happens all of the time in game. So our GM made a soundtrack to play to we would know what was going on in the background of our actions. We use alot of classical chamber music.

 

[Jupp]

In the first few years we used background music very often. No big fight without the Conan soundtrack or else our barbarian would have sit down and refused to do anything (he's a big Conan/Arnie fan). Over the years we somehow stopped using music but now we are slowly going back into it and I think it really helps adding the right touch to a game session. Oddly enough even after 10+ years some players still remember what song was played on a certain event in the campaign. And if you give them the song they sometimes even remember what happend when that song was played

BTW, has anyone any experience with this tool here?

http://www.rpgsoundmixer.com/main/index.php

It sounds interesting but I am not too sure if it would really make the whole music stuff easier to handle for a DM.

 

[Zoatebix]

For a quasi-related discussion, see this thread:
http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=80017

For the record, as a GM I've actually only used music for specific moods and effects once, and I've only GMed with background music *at all* maybe 3 times, tops.

Though, as a player, having a theme song would be kind of cool...

 

[Arnwyn]

I used to do this for Vampire games, but D&D? What would you listen to? I could imagine a lot of Rush, Zepplin, and Queen going on.

Ick, no. As others have noted, orchestral movie soundtracks (and orchestral video-game soundtracks) are what I exclusively use.

 

[Droid101]

I have and use the following movie/game soundtracks: Gladiator, Jurassic Park 2; The Lost World, Independence Day, LoTR 1-3, Pure Moods 1 and 3 (better than you're thinking...), Final Fantasy 4, Final Fantasy 6, Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy 8, Final Fantasy 8 Orchestrated, Xenogears, and Chrono Trigger. I can find a song to fit ANY situation, pretty much. From "Oh lord we gotta get out of here!" to "The uncomfortable wait before the oncoming rush of evil."

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

We don't use music in any of our games. Not sure why, but I think it might be because it's too much work, especially since we spend a lot of time planning.

That being said, I did listen to random bits of heavy metal before going to my Shadowrun games, just to get into the mood.

Brad

 

[Desdichado]

That being said, I did listen to random bits of heavy metal before going to my Shadowrun games, just to get into the mood.

Funny. I listen to techno or EBM or futurepop for the same reason. I think that's much more "the mood" of Shadowrun than heavy metal.